The Thing About Being A Werewolf
by stilljustceci
Summary: See, the thing about being a werewolf is that everyone expects you to be a hero. It’s part of the job description. And it should be easy. Only it isn't. Not in chronological order, more of a series of one-shots than a story.
1. Chapter 1

See, the thing about being a werewolf is that everyone expects you to be a hero. It's part of the job description. And it should be easy. You're bigger than everyone else, you're stronger and faster. The hearing, the night vision… Superhero type stuff, if we're being honest. And as if that weren't enough, when you want to, you can shape shift into a wolf roughly the size of a Volkswagen. That's GOT to make you the bravest dude on Earth.

Only it doesn't.

All I could think, once I was able to shift back to my person-self and start sifting through the chaos in my head in private for the first time, was that I couldn't possibly do it. I wasn't like them. I wasn't Sam, born with Ye Great and Fearless Leader tattooed on my forehead, or Jacob who took everything in stride like it wasn't forty shades of freaky, or even Paul, who was just too much of an asshole to be afraid of anything.

I was just Seth. I was the sidekick, the little brother, the comic relief.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not a coward. When my mom sees a big,hairy spider behind the toilet, who's in there on all fours mashing it into a paste while she dances around behind me squealing? That would be me. And I was never afraid of the dark when I was a kid. Never thought there were monsters under the bed. That was Leah.

Because I didn't believe in monsters. But wouldn't you know it, they're REAL. And I was born to fight them. Mash 'em into a paste behind the metaphorical toilet so the good people of Forks/La Push can sleep well at night.

Only Taha-Aki or whoever it was that put my name on the werewolf roll call apparently didn't know that I'm kind of a wuss. I've never told anyone, but the reason I never screamed on a roller coaster is because I'm so god damn terrified that my throat clenches up and I couldn't make a noise if I had to. I just keep getting on the stupid death traps thinking someday I'll finally throw my hands in the air and scream like a little girl and it'll feel amazing.

Which brings us to back to being a werewolf. I turned into a wolf for the very first time last night, when the moon wasn't even full, and tonight they expect me to do it again. Truth be told, I had to fight to control it all morning. I can feel it under my skin, itching and tingling, almost like the time I got poison ivy. And I'm jittery all the way down to my bones. I wanted to rage and scream and throw things at the walls, but instead, I sat in my room, staring at the rain and crumpling and uncrumpling pieces of paper I tore out of my algebra notebook until they disintegrated.

I was terrified that the Cold Ones, who were REAL, would attack the reserve and Sam and the others would wade in there like heroes to fight them off and I'd be standing in the back, frozen, staring all bug eyed and stupid. Can you be fired from being a werewolf? See, I don't think so. So, maybe they would have just demoted me to hanging around the junkyard at night and scaring off thieves and vandals. You don't have to be brave to do that when you're the stuff of nightmares. Nightmare junkyard dog.

And so I snuck out of my room to go for a walk. I think I was headed to Jacob's place. I could always talk to Jacob. Whether I found him or not, I felt like I would explode if I didn't get out and get moving. Literally explode.

I was walking past the daycare when it happened. You know how they say things happen in slow motion? I don't know that it seemed like it at the time, but I can still remember every fraction of a second of what happened clear as crystal, as if the memory at least is in slow motion.

A group of little kids and their moms were on the sidewalk and one of the boys yanked his hand out of his mother's and ran into the street to chase a bird. A rusty old Datsun was rattling and wheezing its way around the corner. It was the new werewolf reflexes, I know, that made me gauge the speeds and distances and realize all at once that the boy was in trouble. But I didn't turn into a wolf and slay the Datsun and I remember being scared as hell, so I truly believe it was all Seth that darted out there and snatched him up and held him tight as the car rolled by.

His mother was crying and the others were just staring at me, frozen, and I was staring back all bug eyed and stupid. _But I didn't freeze_. I put the kid down in front of his mom and muttered something about having to be somewhere and stuffed my hands in my pockets and kept on walking with a big crazy grin on my face.

And now I feel like a god damn hero. I figure, someday, and someday soon from the sound of things, I'm going to be face-to-face with the bad guys and whether or not I'm scared as hell, ole Wolfman Seth is gonna pull his weight in that fight. HELL yeah.

And next time I get on a roller coaster, dammit, I'm going to SCREAM.


	2. Chapter 2

See, the thing about being a werewolf is that whoever wrote the rulebook was kinda stupid. Don't tell the ancestors or I might be struck down by lightning or something but seriously, whose bright idea was it to use a bunch of high school kids as the heroes of the story? Most days, we barely have it in us to fight off pop quizzes, forehead zits, and unexpected boners in Study Hall. Keep up with me here. Puberty for most means you grow some extra hair, feel some extra urges, eat some extra pizzas. Do you see where I'm going with this?

Getting used to being a teenage werewolf wasn't just about learning to control the nightmare junkyard dog hiding between my skin and my bones like a faulty wire. It wasn't just having to keep up with my schoolwork and a shit ton of yard work and handyman chores for the neighbors to help my mom pay for the shit ton of groceries I shoveled down my throat, most of which I couldn't even remember tasting.

It was also about an even shittier than average outlook on any kind of social life between me and any kind of normal, teenage girl, because not only was my schedule so crazy I couldn't even scratch my ass without someone yelling at me to do it faster and take out the trash while I was at it, but I also had to worry about, oh, accidentally clawing the poor girl's face half-off if she accidentally made me mad. Or happened to be standing too close if someone else made me mad.

I don't mean that sound flippant. Sam pinned my ass once, early on, and said it sounded flippant when I thought it like that, but I never did think of another way to word it. I was serious. And seriously worried.

And then, there was imprinting. Imprinting is the end-all and be-all of dating stress. The big what-if always waiting in the wings to wreak werewolfy havoc on anything you might actually manage to have with a normal, teenage girl. Compared to that, all the zits in the world seemed like cake. Or cream pie. Get it? Ok, yeah, gross. Sorry about that.

Anyway, it's a lot to think about.

And I couldn't help but think about it on patrol. I think the exact train of thought that got my ass kicked this time went something like, Me: _What would be worse, suddenly imprinting in Study Hall, or an unexpected hard-on in Gym?_ Sam: _Imprinting is spiritual, Seth. You shouldn't compare that stuff._ Me: _Yeah, you're right. Imprinting's worse, 'cause you probably get a woody when it happens anyway, right? Well, unless you're Quil. I hope, haha!_

On the upside, when Quil bit me, he tore up the piece of my forehead that had that huge zit on it, and it healed over looking smooth and perfect as a baby's butt. Just like Jacob. I wonder if that's how he keeps his skin so nice, the constant scuffling with Paul. Nah, probably not, 'cause he never loses. Next time I'm at his house, I'm gonna check his medicine cabinet. Bet he's got a family size tube of Clearasil. I wonder if he moisturizes?

I'm gonna take his advice though, and stop thinking about it. At least while we're on patrol. Study Hall is another matter. That cute girl with the widow's peak that sniffs her own armpits when she thinks no one's looking makes me crazy. I wonder if I'd get detention if I told her to stop worrying, she smells good. And I know. Werewolf nose.

I wish I had imprinted on her.

What does Sam know anyway? Really. What's more spiritual than a raging hard-on?


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: My writing muse has decided these Drabbles n Bits of philoSethizing will not be in chronological order. That is all.

* * *

See, the thing about being a werewolf is that, well, you're a werewolf. As in, not human anymore. Question is, was I ever? Maybe feeling human was just the larval stage of turning into a giant fleabag. (Actually, it's usually ticks. Those things suck. Haha.) Sam would probably want us to think so, but I haven't been able to wrap my head around it yet, and it's been a little while, so I don't really think I'm going to. Such a disappointment to Sam and his pack. They say it's important to being part of the team, embracing who we are, but why does it mean we can't be friends with anyone without dewclaws and a Heartgard prescription?

Especially if they're vampires.

_Because they're our natural enemies, Seth._

But what if they're our friends?

I'm glad that Sam can't hear me now. I just know what he would think. _FRIENDS. _He used to growl that really deep, scary growl of his when I protested his saying "bloodsuckers" and "leeches" and "we should kill them all and use their fingers as incense sticks." Okay, I made that last one up. But he was pretty hardcore on the hating. It made me feel weird and I never could shake that feeling. At least now, being part of Jacob's "Make Love, Not War" Hippie-Werewolf pack, I don't have to try to bury it anymore.

Don't get me wrong. I've killed vampires. But I didn't kill them because they were vampires. I killed them because they were scary, out-of-control motherfuckers who were sucking innocent people dry, looting their Chuck Taylors and their iPods, and, oh yeah - trying their hardest to kill me and my friends. My vampire friends.

The elders don't get it. They can't understand that times have changed. It just doesn't make sense for guys like us to stereotype people. (Have you seen an assembly at La Push Reservation High School? It's like a 12-step-program meeting for heavy-metal t-shirt addicts. Or a haircut-emergency group intervention.)

How much does it really take for them to realize how much the Cullens have sacrificed and how hard they've worked to help us and to protect the mere humans in the area? _Just like we do_. How does that make them our enemies rather than part of the team?

_Let's see, they're vampires and they eat people, Seth._ No, they don't. These vampires choose not to. (Actually, sometimes I wonder about Rosalie. You know, if she didn't stink so bad, I tell ya I'd die a happy man. Just sayin'.) We werewolves are a bigger danger to people as far as the food chain goes, the way I see it. Not like _that_. What I mean is, my mom used to tell me, "People are starving in Africa, Seth," to try to guilt me into eating my asparagus spears in walnut sauce or black-eyed peas a l'orange or whatever other culinary freak show she'd found in her latest fad recipe book. Just yesterday, she busted me sneaking a large pizza into my room through the window two hours after she fed me four baked potatoes and three steaks, and you know what she said? "People are starving in Africa, Seth. BECAUSE YOU ATE ALL THEIR FOOD." Dammit. I even ate her broccoli. What more does she want from me?

What was I talking about?

Oh, yeah. Vampires.

So, I fell asleep on the couch the other day while eating a pizza – what, you never fell asleep with pizza in your mouth? – and when I woke up the TV news guy was babbling about rebellions in Darfur, controversies over declarations of genocide, and presidents denying involvement with crimes against humanity. It's enough to give a kid nightmares, even a kid who spends his nights hunting vampires and his days in Study Hall covertly watching girls sniff their armpits.

So, I finished chewing my pizza and finally swallowed it – what, it's a sin to waste food, just ask my mom –and turned off the TV so I could think.

When I was in 8th grade, we had to do these reports on career paths, and I knocked over a display stand of books about ducks or something while I was sneaking out of the library during research time, so I actually had to work on it with the teacher watching over my shoulder the whole time. That was when I decided I wanted to join the Peace Corps. At first, it was because JFK was a stud and Sargent Shriver was the coolest name I ever heard but we needed at least 1000 words and the teacher helped me find some stuff about how they travel around in struggling countries to help people learn how to do important things for themselves. Kinda like Lara Croft except as a teacher instead of an ass-kicker. And training people instead of stealing their shit.

Okay, nothing like Lara Croft. I just put a picture of her on the cover sheet 'cause she's hot as hell. I got a C on the report, but I kept thinking about it, you know? My guidance counselor when I started at the high school was all stoked. She gave me all these pamphlets, but before you know it, I found out I'm a goddamn werewolf. _No Peace Corps for you, Seth, 'cause you can't leave town. See, there's this secret little supernatural _jihad_, and you're a killing machine, a _mujahid_ for the Quileute faithful._

You would think the guidance counselor would warn people about this possibility. _Oh, I see you've checked that yes, some of your direct male ancestors ate Alpo and/or had more hair than the average Saint Bernard. You know, you might plan on staying in town rather than dreaming your little dreams, kid. Maybe you can invent Tick-B-Gone, in all that free time between being a vampire murderer and trying to finish high school._

I wonder what the guidance counselor would say if she knew I'd moved on from the Peace Corps dream to moonlighting as a genocidal werewolf, and with that on my resume', joined an elite group of peace-seeking negotiators between my people and the vegetarian undead.

Sam still thinks I'm an idiot, and technically I am betraying my heritage and the spiritual destiny of my people (and I still don't get to travel), but when my mom thinks I'm not looking, she smiles at me. And I think that means she's proud.


	4. Chapter 4

See, the thing about being a werewolf is, to borrow some phraseology from the great Peter Parker, that you're given great power at an age where great responsibility is remembering to take out the trash every Tuesday night, forever and ever, amen, so that your mom doesn't decide to keep the overflow of stinking Glad bags in your bedroom for a week as punishment. Yeah, I didn't make that up. There's still a reeking stain on my floorboards where some tuna oil leaked out of a corner and at least once a week now I dream about rotted mermaid zombies that follow me around and can only be killed by mops and toilet brushes. As if it didn't suck enough I have to fight vampires when I'm awake. Thanks, Mom.

Responsibility. It's not something I thought about those first few months I was a werewolf.

First, I was scared out of my mind. I didn't see myself as the hero type. I guess in retrospect, in the comics, there are plenty of not-quite-studly nerd boys who have to wiggle into the spandex and get their asses in hero-mode whether they're the captain of the football team or not. The power tends to push you into the game, ready or not, and you KNOW the last kid picked for dodge ball is always the first one staring like a deer in headlights at that damn over-pumped regulation red ball coming straight at his head. Yelling "I didn't even wanna play, you assholes, and isn't this against school policy anyway?" doesn't make it hurt less, nor does it make the guys stop laughing at you. Yeah, I didn't make that up either.

So, scared or not, it didn't take me long to man up and pay attention to what I needed to do as part of the pack in order to stay out of the way of the big red ball. Or the big redheaded vampire as the case was. Actually, the smallish, skinny redheaded vampire who probably didn't weigh more than, like, 115 pounds tops. That shit is embarrassing, vampire or not, but that's beside the point.

Anyway, prior to any actual fighting, I had started to think being a werewolf was kinda cool. I had been too jittery and freaked out to think about it much, but a few weeks before I started phasing, I started growing inches and muscles and projecting some kind of nightmare junkyard dog-aura that made even the captain of the football team act nervous around me. When I (mostly) stopped being afraid of what I had become, and started trying to get good at it, I realized that I _could_ be good at it. Not like Jacob, but still. There's no such thing as a weak, slow, or clumsy werewolf. It was kinda too bad that we didn't play dodgeball in gym anymore by then. I owed some fuckers some good, hard headshots. Oh well. Rise above, as Sam would say. Rise above. A full head and shoulders above, I figured. And I admit, I shouldered a few guys in the halls between classes until Sam got after me, but by then my point was made.

And then I actually killed a vampire. A vampire who used to be a guy only a few years older than I was, and who hadn't done a thing wrong but be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and be too weak to resist Victoria's crazy redheaded mindfuck mojo.

But even that's not when the real weight of the responsibility hit me. That happened almost exactly a week later.

We had gone back to patrols, in some ways taking them even more seriously because the threat hadn't been destroyed; it had been proven. Still, we ran like hyper, happy puppies that first week afterward: rolling each other for kicks, having races, pulling tails, playing pranks. We felt indestructible. On a Thursday morning before dawn, I was running with Paul not far from the edges of rez housing, and he kept bumping me with his shoulder. He was bigger than I was but that didn't mean he was tougher. I knew I could take him.

Without really meaning to, we starting fighting as we ran, growling louder, pushing harder. Sam snapped at us to cut it out and just then, a rabbit darted out from behind a tree off to our left. Paul jerked his chin up in challenge then veered toward it. Oh, maybe he was bigger, but he couldn't beat me for speed. Three more bounds and I had its crunchy little bones and hot blood between my teeth making me forget how much I wanted to kick Pauls' ass as he ran on, pretending he hadn't been trying. But then he made some crack about my mom's cooking and I left the rabbit and raced after him again.

Two hours later, my mom was hitting me over the head with the Forks _Forum_ and yelling at me 'cause my leg and my ribs weren't going to heal in time for me to make it to school and I was supposed to take a big geometry test that day. She even told me she _was_ going to make me an omelette with bacon and onions and those fat little green beans, but since I had to go and act like a _child_ she gave me a mixing bowl and a box of Cheerios and threatened lima bean salad for dinner if I didn't stay inside 'til she got home from work. And there was only a half-gallon of milk in the fridge, too. That shit is just mean.

(It's not like I wasn't going to eat it all by the time she got back anyway. By the way, you're supposed to defrost the green beans before you put 'em in the frying pan. FYI. And yeah, being freakishly tall comes in handy when you have to get cooking oil off the ceiling.)

After a second round of abuse by daily news when Mom got home, I was reminded that it was Claire's birthday (Yay, Quil!) and sent to the store to pick up her cake for the party. So there I was, walking to Sam's house with a cake box roughly the size of, well, Sam, when I saw the first flyer. Stapled to the phone pole across the street from the Ateara house was a Lost Bunny flyer with a picture of a little flop-eared white rabbit and Claire's name at the bottom.

I looked down at the big white fluffy bunny on the big white fluffy ice cream cake with the big white roses in the box I was holding and thought, _Wow, I suck…_ I scuffed the soles of my shoes on the sidewalk the whole rest of the walk, but eventually I had to get there. And by that time, I really felt bad. I had killed cute little Claire's pet bunny the day before her Baby Bunny-themed 3rd birthday party. At least I hadn't eaten it, or I'd feel kinda bad wanting some of the cake.

I could tell Paul knew, too. He was even helping in the kitchen, being quiet and everything, and that shit's just weird. Quil kept throwing me dirty looks and I figured he was gonna kick my ass next time we phased, and I kinda figured I deserved it. Especially when he made a point to cut the head off an icing bunny and give me that piece while Claire was clapping her little hands over her big pink wax '3'.

The day after the party, Jacob made me and Paul tell Claire we'd found her bunny in the forest and that it was dead, and she took it pretty well, all things considered. Her big, tearful eyes really hurt though. If she'd really cried, like wailed and gnashed, I think I would have died, because I was already just rolling in the self-hate. I'll take salt on my wounds to a toddler's tears on my guilt any day now. As it is, I think it will be a long, long time before I get so caught up in playing while I'm on the job that I forget about that bunny. I have to be more responsible than that.

Now if only I could remember the damn trash.


	5. Chapter 5

See, the thing about being a werewolf is that the more things change, the more they stay the same. You would _think_ that turning into a supernatural superhero would force you to contemplate your life, to be a better person. Well, HA. No one told that to Paul. Now, instead of being an asshole, he's a really BIG asshole. A really big, HAIRY asshole. I wish I could tear him up, but let's be honest. Even if Sam would let me do it, Paul can still kick my ass. So much for all my muscle.

Let me tell you where my muscle has gotten me lately.

While I was in Study Hall on Monday, actually doing my Geometry homework for a change instead of sleeping behind my sunglasses, this little folded paper triangle landed on my desk. I had no idea what it was but I was pretty sure Armpit Girl had thrown it. She was staring at her notebook, pulling knobby little strings of paper out of the spiral, but she was chewing on her lip and bouncing one of her knees and she's usually not the nervous type. Plus, it came from that corner and the only other person that sits over there had his head down on the desk, drooling onto his Trapper Keeper.

The theories running through my head as I looked back down and picked up the little triangle started at _maybe she was aiming at my head and missed_ and went to _maybe she wants to play Flick Football_ and then I noticed the girl next to me trying to get my attention. Now, girls NEVER talk to me. Or throw things at me. So when I looked over, I was already pretty confused. And then she started talking to me in sign language. I blinked and moved my mouth helplessly at her, and she repeated the motions more slowly, touching her hands together and pulling them away from each other in little arcs over and over.

"Sewing?" I whispered.

She rolled her eyes.

"B-banana?"

Mrs. Trenton cleared her throat sharply and I sunk down into my chair with the triangle fisted in my lap. I glanced over at Armpit Girl; she had her head in her hands and her eyes closed. I flicked my thumb over the folded paper and part of it came unfolded. Suddenly, it clicked and I glanced over at Sign Language Girl as I pulled the paper open. She was looking at Armpit Girl and shrugging. In the middle of the piece of notebook paper in purple ink, it said, "Do you want to go to the Sadie Hawkins dance with me on Friday? –Gina. 374-9889"

And then Armpit Girl smiled at me and I gaped at her for a moment before remembering to nod. I really hoped her name was Gina.

Monday night, I'd been in my room freaking out for almost 3 hours when Leah finally poked in her head and said, "What the fuck is wrong with you, Seth? Oh my God, your room smells like fish. Gross," and then she left. I was about to climb out the window and go ask Jacob for advice when I realized that I had a patrol shift on Friday night and there was no way I could go to the dance anyway. My relief was extreme and lasted approximately 4 hours; that is, it lasted until I went on patrol that night and the guys heard me thinking about it. Jacob mentally high-fived me and told me he'd get the shift covered while I tried to insist I didn't really want to go, and the rest of the guys made fun of me for liking Armpit Girl in the first place. I wish I'd given her another nickname.

So, I sat in Study Hall trading little smiles with her every day that week, freaking out in my room every evening, and getting made fun of the nights I had patrol. On Thursday, Paul showed up at my house during dinner (of course) and ate half my share, then said Sam had sent him to have a talk with me. Mom made Leah do the dishes in my place and I laughed all the way out the door. I laughed right up until Paul said, "So… the Birds and the Bees Talk, Clearwater," and slapped his hands together, grinning like the happiest motherfucker in the world.

The Talk went something like this:

"You know what a condom is?"

_Oh my God, kill me now._

"Well, don't trust 'em. They don't work on werewolves, man."

"What?"

"We break 'em every time."

"Oh fuck, Paul. TMI. I'm not gonna have sex, okay? Probably EVER at this rate, so, we're cool, okay? Just tell Sam I… I got it, okay?"

"Like he'd believe me if I came back this early. Everyone knows you're kinda Special Ed, dude. Especially with girls."

"Whatever."_ Oh, that's where I left the nail gun. Shit, it rusted. Mom's gonna be pissed._

"Come back here, Wolftard. I still have to tell you about the puppies!"

_I'd shoot myself in the head so I wouldn't have to listen to this anymore, but it wouldn't actually HURT me._

"Are you listening, Seth?"

_I mean, it would hurt but I wouldn't actually die, so then I'd have to figure out how to get the nails OUT so it would STOP hurting. And Paul would still be talking…_

"You know what happens if a werewolf knocks up a girl without imprinting?"

_I'd have to go to Carlisle and he'd be all, "Seth, why do you have nails in your temple?"_

"She might have PUPPIES, Seth. You don't wanna have to explain a litter of puppies to your Armpit Girl, do you, Seth?"

"WHAT?!"

Paul wasn't smiling.

"You're fucking lying, Paul. That's the stupidest thing I ever heard."

"Your vet bill, dude," he said, and then the asshole just walked the fuck away. Fucking liar. I almost threw the nail gun at the back of his head, but I didn't want Mom to kill me for breaking it.

I dreamed about puppies that night and when Armpit Girl, I mean Gina, passed me a note with her address on it on Friday, I almost threw up. I knew Paul was lying, I swear, but I still almost canceled. I tried to find Jacob or Sam at lunch, but they were all with Paul somewhere. Fucking Paul.

So, needless to say, the dance sucked. Gina looked really good, and she'd done something with her hair that made it all shiny and I swear she was wearing lip gloss or something that made her lips shiny too, and she smelled like apples and pears, and she was smiling at me the whole time, and all I could fucking think about was puppies. She tried to hold my hand on the way there and I thought, "_Puppies,_" and pretended I had to scratch my head; she tried to put her arms around my neck during a slow dance and I thought, "_Puppies,_" and stepped back a bit so she couldn't reach; and when I dropped her off at the end of the worst date in the history of bad dates, she acted like she wanted me to kiss her, putting her little hands on my chest and leaning toward me, and I actually fucking blurted out, "Puppies! I mean, I… I have to feed the puppies. …I have to go," and I ran away. I literally ran away. I'm glad I'm not old enough to drive because I probably would have forgotten my car in her driveway. I figured she would never speak to me again.

And that's not even the worst part. I ran home and phased because I was just too pissed off at Paul not to, and they were all laughing at me because Paul had told them. Even Jacob. He apologized over and over again, because apparently Sam had sent _him_ to talk to me but he, being Jake, had gotten sidetracked by Bella-stuff, so he'd decided to send Paul in his stead. I could tell he thought I was stupid for having believed it though.

I will never believe anything Paul says again.

On the other hand, Analisa (that's Sign Language girl's name, it turns out) told her boyfriend Joe who told Embry who told me that I was a complete gentleman and she'd thought it was cute that I was so shy. The guys translated that to mean "pussy" and taped pictures of puppies and kittens to my locker most of the next week, but Gina hasn't stopped smiling at me during Study Hall (or sniffing her armpits when she thinks I'm not looking.) I tried to write her a note saying I wanted to go out with her again but when I tossed it at her I missed and Mrs. Trenton saw it. Now I have detention and I'm grounded over the weekend and can't go out anyway. Oh, well. Like I said, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

On the upside, Sam gave Paul a black eye over the whole situation, and that made me happy as hell, for the thirty minutes it lasted.


	6. Chapter 6

See, the thing about being a werewolf is that I have no superpowers of the mind. Mind reading doesn't count when it's only with the pack; admit it, we got robbed.

I still couldn't do pre-cal to save my life. Or anyone else's, and fortunately for them, I didn't have to. And creative writing? I remember thinking my English teacher was out to kill me. There was one midnight, on a Thursday night right before our first creative writing assignment was due, that I thought smoke was coming out of my ears. I swear, I smelled smoke.

Our assignment was to write a narrative essay about someone important to us, and a time they taught us something that made a difference in our lives. I don't want to sound ungrateful, but I couldn't think of anyone or anything. I mean, I could, but if I'd written about any of that stuff, my teacher would have flunked me for making such crazy shit up.

And I'm still not real clear on what the hell a narrative essay is. I thought the narrative was the dude who told the story. So, I know I'm the dude, but what's the story? Argh. Fur-for-brains isn't just what my mother calls me anymore.

I kept coming back to her, my mom, even though I just knew if I turned in an Important Person essay about my mother, the other guys would never let me live it down, seeing as I don't have a vagina and all. My father would have been a more obvious choice, especially since he died. Dying makes people saints, after all, and he even died before I wolfed out so you'd think there would have been SOMEthing I could write about.

But no matter how hard I tried, all I could think about was my mom, pizza, Gina, carrot cake, …and smoke. Seriously. I smelled smoke. It smelled like wood burning, and I know my brain's not made out of wood, so I got up to check it out.

Turned out Leah had fallen asleep smoking outside and her cigarette was burning a hole in the porch. She yelled at me for fucking waking her up even though I figured I'd saved her ass from being engulfed in bitch-eating flames, and then Mom came out and yelled at us both. Leah took her up on the fight, so I snuck away to keep working on my paper.

Mom came into my room when they were done and kept yelling at me 'cause I still hadn't picked up my laundry off the floor. I didn't want to fight with her, since I still had to somehow pull a narrative essay out of my ass, so I picked it all up real quick. It took me like a minute and a half. She was the only one who cared if my room was dirty or clean anyway. I didn't see how it made any difference at all 'cause it was just going to get dirty again, and I made the mistake of telling her that.

She got tears in her eyes like she was about to cry, so I changed the subject real quick, asked the first thing that came to mind.

"Mom, what's a narrative essay?"

"It's a story, Seth."

I rolled my eyes. I had to. "Mom, I know, but what KIND of story? The narrative tells the story, but what KIND of story does he tell?"

"The narrator, Seth. The narrator is the person who tells the story. The story itself is a narrative. As long as it's a story, where something is happening, and not just explaining the history of Forks or how to build a boat or something, it's a narrative."

"…seriously? That's it? Just a story?"

"Yeah. Just a story."

"That's the stupidest thing I ever heard."

She made a sad face and I immediately felt bad.

"I know you didn't make it up, Mom. I'm sorry. It's just… I feel really stupid sometimes. And I hate having to write stupid papers that are so hard and no fun, and then I'm just gonna throw 'em in the recycle bin next week. And I don't get WHY I have to learn this stuff if I don't even wanna be a writer."

"I just used it and I'm not a writer. I'm just a mom."

"Yeah, but you know everything," I joked. I seriously needed her to stop looking so sad.

"I don't, Seth. And everyone has to do things they don't want to do. Sometimes, you do them because you find out later what they were good for. And sometimes, you find out later they weren't good for anything after all. But it's hard to know in advance, and doing things for no reason is better than never doing anything at all."

I didn't really get it and I was about to tell her that, but suddenly she just hugged me.

"And sometimes, you do things just to make someone else happy, and that reason's just fine, even if no one else understands."

That made even less sense, and I was starting to feel awkward because she wasn't letting go of me. Oh shit, was she finally crying? But she wasn't, hallelujah, and when she finally let go, she said she was going to bed.

Well, at least I knew what to write. A story. A story about… shit. Oh well. I ended up writing about how Leah almost burned down the house and how my mom told me what a narrative essay was. It took me all night, but right before I dragged ass to school the next morning, Mom made me my favorite for breakfast: sausage, and grilled peppers, and eggs scrambled with milk, and toast with lots of butter; plus I got a D, which is not an F, on the paper, AND I didn't have to read it out loud in front of the class, so I felt like I'd scored a good day after all.

Did you get that? A narrative essay is just a story, and you don't even have to narrate it to the class.

I'm so fucking confused.


End file.
